Nvidia has just released another "over the air" update for its Shield tablet.

The tablet is destined to have a successor soon but until that happens Nvidia will continue to replace the Shield tablet's broken batteries and release new updates for its operating system.

The latest update is based on Android 5.1.1 and it brings the security patch for Stagefright. The new 25.6MB download also includes stability and performance improvements and system wide optimisations and fixes. These include battery performance and Netflix playback.

The Shield wireless controller is getting the firmware update too.

This comes just days after Nexus sent out a 22.9 MB update for its Nexus 5,6 and 9 devices. It would appear that the Shield tablet gets the updates almost as fast as the Nexus. Our biggest problem with most of the devices out there is that it takes ages to get the OTA updates.

There are only 21 percent of devices on the market with Android 5.0 and 5.1, codenamed Lollipop, and Google is about to segment the market even more with Android 6.0 Marshmallow which comes in a month or two.

It is no secret that Nvidia has been busy working on a Shield 2, or the next generation Shield gaming console based on the new Tegra K1 chip.

It turns out that Nvidia published its Tegra FaceWorks Demo on Google Play and for those who haven’t seen it in action, it is a face recognition demo that works on Tegra K1 based devices.It is a 151 MB demo that requires a Tegra K1 device and it has been downloaded only one to five times. There are no Tegra K1 devices in the wild and it turns out that Xiaomi has jet to start shipping its Mi Pad tablet.

The Tegra K1 looks quite fast and we expect to see a new Nvidia branded 8-inch tablet based on the new chip soon. Some people say we can expect an Nvidia-based Nexus at the Google I/O later this month, but this is something we cannot confirm. It looks like the TK1-based Shield 2 is coming and this is something that Nvidia has confirmed a few times. Even CEO Jen-Hsun Huang hinted at a new Shield.

What might be interesting about the Tegra K1 Shield is that you might expect to see it in more than just the US market. Companies usually launch products in the US and Canada, as it is relatively easy to tap a the huge North American market than the rest of the world. The second generation Shield comes should be international and this is a bit trickier. You do need to translate everything to a few major languages like Spanish, German and French and if the time and money permits to some other major ones, Chinese for example. There are some technical and legal implications, too.

The original Shield console launched on July 31st 2013 and we are still almost two months away from this date. The 2013 launch date doesn’t prove that the next generation Shield comes at the same time, but it might be close. Nvidia confirmed that it has started shipping Tegra K1 parts this quarter and it might not be too long before we see the first devices in the etail / retail market.

Nvidia’s original Shield console launched last summer to mixed reviews. It went on sale in the US and so far Nvidia has been rather reluctant when it comes to other markets.

Shield 2 is in the works, that’s no secret. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang confirmed that the company plans to roll out a new console with each new Tegra generation, hence the Shield 2 feature a Tegra K1 chip with 192 Kepler cores.

More RAM, slightly higher resolution

The Shield 2 has now popped up on the AnTuTu benchmark database. The listing was unearthed by gforgames.com. It is said to feature a new 1440x810 screen, up from 1280x800 on the first gen Shield, along with 4GB of RAM, up from 2GB. The sample was running Android 4.4.2 and AnTuTu also identified an 0.3-megapixel camera. The original Shield had no camera and frankly we don’t know why it was added. It still has 16GB of internal storage, just like its predecessor.

The Tegra K1 used in the engineering sample was clocked up to 2525MHz. The Tegra 4 used in the first generation console was clocked at 1.9GHz. Like the Tegra 4, the new Tegra K1 features four Cortex A15 cores, but it has a much more powerful GPU.

The clock bump is interesting, too. Keep in mind that this does not mean other Tegra 4 devices will offer the same clock. The Shield is bigger and thicker than your average tablet, so it can accommodate a more capacious battery and better cooling, including active cooling for load scenarios.

Shield is part of a wider strategy

Nvidia never disclosed any official sales figures for the first generation Shield. The device looked more like a tech demonstrator and a proof-of-concept than a device with mass market appeal. Don’t get us wrong, the hardware is ok, even the first generation Shield excelled at gaming.

However, the Android gaming ecosystem remains limited. There aren’t that many games that place an emphasis on eye candy. Casual games like King’s Candy Crush are much more common. Nvidia’s way of getting around this problem is PC streaming. It wasn’t quite ready when the first-gen Shield launched, but now it’s slowly getting there.

Nvidia burned a lot of money to develop the Shield and associated services. The investment does not make much sense for the time being, as it is highly unlikely to recoup the investment anytime soon. The company is not planning to sell millions of units, at least not yet.

The Shield always was and still is part of Nvidia’s wider, long-term gaming strategy, a strategy that revolves around PC streaming rather than Android gaming. Whether or not it will pay off remains to be seen.

Nvidia’s Shield console has been out for months, but the reception has been lukewarm. Most reviewers agreed that the Shield was a very potent piece of kit, but on the other hand there’s not that many Android games that can push the hardware to its limits and PC streaming is still anything but mainstream.

Speaking on the sidelines of Nvidia’s Montreal event, CEO Jen Hsun Huang told Endgadget that he would love to see a Logan-powered version of Shield. Bear in mind that the original Shield was the first device to use Nvidia’s Tegra 4, so it’s possible that Nvidia could also launch Logan, or Tegra 5, in the next generation Shield, or perhaps a tablet of its own.

With much more powerful Kepler graphics, the next generation Shield console would provide plenty of performance, but performance is not an issue for the Shield anyway, it’s the ecosystem which still isn’t there. But Nvidia is in there for the long haul.

“Android is the world’s most open, but yet productised operating system. Android as you know has a mobile version that people use in phones, but you’re gonna see Android in cars, you’re gonna see Android in TVs, you’re gonna see Android in computers,” said Huang. “You’re gonna see Android really, really proliferating everywhere.”

This is where Nvidia hopes to make its mark. Huang pointed out that Android has the benefit of having more people working on the platform than on other platforms combined, which means the lack of top notch games and apps optimized for high definition tablets could become a thing of the past.

“We want to do for Android what Geforce did for PCs,” said Huang. He added that consumer GPUs turned ordinary PCs into powerful gaming machines. “We would like to do the same for Android machines.”

Asked whether a new Shield is in the works, Huang said a new Shield should be expected whenever there’s a new Tegra. He said Logan has all the architecture sophistication of PC gaming platforms, i.e. Kepler.

“It would bring me great joy if Shield was the first customer for Logan,” he said.